Part 5

For a moment my companion did not move. A bird sang in the tree above us and the wind sent a shower of pink petals over the green mound. Then, stooping, he picked a white Castilian rose from a tangle of shrubbery and laid it at the base of the granite shaft. "In memory of the lovely Rafaela," he said softly; I unpinned a bunch of fragrant violets from my jacket and placed, them beside his offering, then we silently followed the shaded path to the white picket gate and were once more on the noisy thoroughfare.

"A fitting resting place for the first Mexican governor of California," he said, glancing back at the heavy façade of the church, "so simple and dignified. Yet if Luis Argüello had lived in New England, we should have considered his house of equal importance with his grave and have placed a bronze tablet on the front, but you Westerners have, so little regard for old--"

"If you would like to see the home of Luis Argüello, I will show it to you. It is at the Presidio."

"A hopeless mass of neglected ruins, I suppose. But still I should like to see the old walls, if you can find them."

"Shall we take the Camino Real on foot, just as the old padres used to?"

"Not if I have my way. I'll acknowledge that the Spanish friars have left you Californians one legacy that no Easterner can vie with, that is your love of tramping over these hills. I've seen streets in San Francisco so steep that teams seldom attempt them, as is evident from the grass between the cobblestones, and yet they are lined with dwellings."

"Houses that are never vacant," I assured him. "We like to get off the level, and value our residence real estate by the view it affords."

Noticing that the sun was now high, my companion drew out his watch. "Luncheon time," he announced. "Shall it be the Palace or St. Francis hotel?"

"Let's keep in the spirit of the times and go to a Spanish restaurant," I suggested, and soon we were on a car headed for the Latin quarter.

"May I replace the violets you left at the Mission?" he asked, as stepping from the car at Lotta's fountain, we lingered before the gay flower stands edging the sidewalk.

Before I had a chance to reply a fragrant bunch was thrust into his hands by an urchin who announced: "Two for two-bits."

"Two-bits is twenty-five cents," I interpreted, seeing the Easterner's mystified look.

"I'll take three bunches." His eyes rested admiringly on the big purple heads as he held out a dollar bill.

"Ain't you got any real money?" asked the boy, not offering to touch the currency.

Again the man's hand went to his pocket and drew out some small change, from which he selected a quarter, a dime and three one-cent pieces. The urchin turned the coppers over in his palm, then, diving below the heap of violets, he pulled out several California poppies. "We always give these to Easterners," he announced as he tucked them in among the violets.

"I wonder how that boy knew I was an Easterner?" the Bostonian reflected as we turned away. Then gently touching the golden petals, he asked: "Where did you get the odd name 'eschscholtzia' for this lovely flower?"

"It was given by the French-born poet-naturalist, Chamisso, in honor of the German botanist, Dr. Eschscholz, who came together to San Francisco on a Russian ship in 1816. However, I like better the Spanish names, dormidera--the sleepy flower--or copa de oro--cup of gold," I added as I pinned the flowers to my coat. The man's glance wandered around Newspaper Corners, when suddenly his look of surprise told me that he had discovered on this crowded section of commercial San Francisco a duplicate of the old bell hung in front of the Mission San Francisco de Asís.

"We are following El Camino Real from the Mission to the Presidio," I reminded him.

We turned toward the shopping district, but the lure of the place made our feet lag. We watched the people purchasing flowers at the corner, and the little newsboys drinking from Lotta's fountain.

"A tablet," he exclaimed delightedly, examining the bronze plate fastened to the fountain. "I didn't know you Westerners ever indulged in such things. 'Presented to San Francisco by Lotta, 1875,'" he read.

"Little Lotta Crabtree," I explained, "the sweet singer who bewitched the city at a time when gold was still more plentiful than flowers, and her song was greeted by a shower of the glittering metal flung to her feet by enthusiastic miners. But read the second tablet," I suggested. "It was placed there with the permission of Lotta."

"Tetrazzini!" his voice rang with surprise.

"Can you picture this place surging with people as it was on Christmas night five years ago, when Tetrazzini sang to San Francisco?" I asked. "The crowd began to gather long before the appointed time--the wealthy banker from his spacious home on Pacific Heights, the grimy laborer from the Potrero and the little newsboy with the badge of his profession slung over his shoulder. Flushed with excitement, the courted debutante drew back to give her place to a tired factory girl and close to the platform an old Italian, who had tramped all the way from Telegraph Hill, patiently waited to hear the sweet voice of his country woman. 'Tetrazzini is here,' they said to one another; Tetrazzini, who had been discovered and adored by the people of San Francisco when, as an unknown singer, she appeared in the old Tivoli opera house. At last she came, wrapped in a rose-colored opera coat, and was greeted with shouts of joy from a quarter of a million throats. She was radiant; smiling and dimpling she waved her handkerchief with the abandonment of a child. The storm of applause increased, rolling up the street to the very summit of Twin Peaks. Suddenly the soft liquid notes of a clear soprano fell upon the air, and instantly the great multitude was wrapped in silence. Out over the heads of the people the exquisite tones floated, mounting upward to the stars. It was the 'Last Rose of Summer,' and as she sang her opera coat slipped from her, leaving her bare shoulders and white filmy gown silhouetted against the sombre background. She sang again and again, while the vast throng seemed scarcely to breathe. Then she began the familiar strains of 'Old Lang Syne,' and at a sign, two hundred and fifty thousand people joined in the refrain."

"There is not a city in all the world except San Francisco which could have done such a thing," enthusiastically rejoined my companion, but the next instant the eccentricities of the place struck him afresh.

"Furs and apple blossoms!" he exclaimed, observing a woman opposite. "What a ridiculous combination!" Then, turning, he scrutinized me from the top of my flower-trimmed hat to the bottom of my full skirt until my cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Why, you have on a thin summer silk, while that woman is dressed for mid-winter!"

"Of course," I assented. "She's on the shady side of the street."

But still his face did not lighten. "We've been in the sun all morning," I continued to explain. "People talk about San Francisco being an expensive place to live in, but really it is the cheapest in the world. If a woman has a handsome set of furs, she wears them and keeps in the shadow, or if her new spring suit has just come home, she puts that on and walks on the sunny side of the street, being comfortably and appropriately, dressed in either."

"Great heavens!" he cried, "what a city!"